Friday, June 02, 2017

The Expedient Genre Fiction Of David Brooks

In yet another hilarious addition to the swiftly burgeoning genre of "Trump is not a Republican" fiction, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times goes so far as to separate "Trump" (who is bad) from "People" (who are good).

No, I am not kidding.

So as an exercise for the class, let us examine the how easily the fictions Mr. David Brooks spun in The New York Times today could have been transformed into facts if Mr. David Brooks weren't, y'know, congenitally dishonest (for the record, all contrasts are intended as political and ideological observations on the unbridgeable divide between the Left and the Right in the United States and not as commentary on human nature generally or the 7.5B people with whom we share this planet.)

That sentence is the epitome of the Trump project. It asserts that selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs. It grows out of a worldview that life is a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that cooperative communities are hypocritical covers for the selfish jockeying underneath.

Fact:

That sentence is the epitome of the Conservative project to which I have devoted my entire life. It asserts that selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs. It grows out of a worldview that life is a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that cooperative communities are hypocritical covers for the selfish jockeying underneath.

Fiction:

The essay explains why the Trump people are suspicious of any cooperative global arrangement, like NATO and the various trade agreements. It helps explain why Trump pulled out of the Paris global-warming accord. This essay explains why Trump gravitates toward leaders like Vladimir Putin, the Saudi princes and various global strongmen: They share his core worldview that life is nakedly a selfish struggle for money and dominance.

Fact:

The essay explains why the entire Republican Party are suspicious of any cooperative global arrangement, like NATO and the various trade agreements. It helps explain why the entire Republican Partycheered at the United Stated pulling out of the Paris global-warming accord. This essay explains why the entire Republican Party gravitates toward leaders like Vladimir Putin, the Saudi princes and various global strongmen: They share their core worldview that life is nakedly a selfish struggle for money and dominance.

Fiction:

People are wired to cooperate. Far from being a flimsy thing, the desire for cooperation is the primary human evolutionary advantage we have over the other animals.

Fact:

Liberals are wired to cooperate, because we understand that, far from being a flimsy thing, the desire for cooperation is the primary human evolutionary advantage we have over the other animals. Conservatives stand in proud opposition to any notion of cooperation or compromise.

Fiction:

People have a moral sense. They have a set of universal intuitions that help establish harmony between peoples...There’s no society on earth where people are admired for running away in battle or for lying to their friends.

Fact:

Liberals have a moral sense. They have a set of universal intuitions that help establish harmony between peoples...There’s no society on earth except my Republican Party where people are admired for running away in battle or for lying to their friends.

Fiction:

People have moral emotions. They feel rage at injustice, disgust toward greed, reverence for excellence, awe before the sacred and elevation in the face of goodness.

Fact:

Liberals have moral emotions. They feel rage at injustice, disgust toward greed, reverence for excellence, awe before the sacred and elevation in the face of goodness. Conservatives mock those who fight injustice, worship greed, show open contempt for experts whose considered opinions conflict with their bigoted ravings, shit all over the sacred and believe appeals to goodness are just more Libtard trickery designed to steal their money and give it to the undeserving.

Fiction:

People yearn for righteousness. They want to feel meaning and purpose in their lives, that their lives are oriented toward the good.

Fact:

Liberals yearn for righteousness. Conservatives feel meaning and purpose by by trying to wipe all traces of the Obama Administration from the history books and drinking Libtard Tears.

Fiction:

People are attracted by goodness and repelled by selfishness.

Fact:

WTF, Brooks? I mean, what the actual fuck?

OK, I'm done.

Just done.

You know, back when I was taking and teaching fiction writing workshops, writers of a certain age would occasionally (frequently) get a faraway look in their eye (cliche! do better next time!) and speak wistfully of the Good Old Days when writers like Vonnegut or Sturgeon could actually make a comfortable living by selling a few works of fiction to Playboy every year.

Then they would sigh, because those days were obviously gone for good.

Except -- surprise! -- the era of writers being able to earn Big Money by spinning genre fiction in national publications has not ended. It has simply decamped to the op-ed pages of America's newspapers.

And in case you missed it on the Twitter, here is a simple breakdown of the universal alibi that life-long Republicans-who-are-suddenly-alarmed-by-the-state-of-the-Republican-Party from Joe Scarborough to David Brooks all use to explain the state of their GOP.

1. Sure, the base is nuts...

2. And, sure Conservative media is a shitpile of liars and Bannons...

3. And, sure, elected Republicans in Congress are gutless cowards and lunatics...

4. And, yes, President Stupid -- the leader of the party -- is a demented old racist in the pocket of the Russians.

5. But somehow...waaay over there...in a special happy place only I and my fellow Beltway pundits can see...there is this whole other Republican Party full of people just like me!

5 comments:

To recapitulate you: it took millions of years to get to the point where we humans sometimes cooperate across tribes and nations and religions and people who look different. Most of us, frankly, are not interested in the dog-eat-dog, each-against-all mentality/morality that conservatism espouses (hmmmm. Interesting word, "espouses." Like conservatives are married to that point of view). I sometimes think that pov approaches the outskirts of paranoia.

The cooperation vs everyone for himself thing goes deeper than just the GOP. PaulKrugman notwithstanding, I argue that it's part of the inherent flaw in all academic economics. It also mirrors my speculations on Neanderthals.